11 August 1999 Total Solar Eclipse
The Visibility (Espenak and Anderson)

T
he last total solar eclipse of the 20-th century begins in the
North Atlantic about 300km south of Nova
Scotia where the eclipse will be, unfortunately, invisible.

No major landfall occurs for the first forty
minutes as the shadow sweeps across the North
Atlantic. The umbra
finally reach the Isles of Scilly of the
southwestern coast of England at 10:10 UT. One minute later, the
Moon's umbra arrives along the shores of the
Cornwall Peninsula. By 10:16 UT, the umbra leaves
England as it traverses the English Channel
and goes to Europe. The
southern edge of the umbra first reaches
Normandy at 10:16 UT. As the shadow sweeps through the
French countryside , its southern edge
passes 30km north of Paris (where the
eclipse will be invisible).

Continuing on its eastward track, the path's
northern limit crosses
into southern Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
At 10:33 UT the entire umbra crosses into southern Germany
where Stuttgart and Munchen lie
near path center. At 10:41 UT, the umbra leaves Germany and crosses
into Austria where it encounters the
Eastern Alps. The southern edge
of the path grazes northeastern Slovenia
as the shadow enters Hungary
at 10:47 UT, where lake Balaton lies
wholly within the path. As the
shadow leaves Hungary, the southern third briefly sweeps through
northern Yugoslavia and enters into
Romania.

The instant of
greatest eclipse in August 11, 1999, occurs at
11:03:04 UT and will be recorded among
the rolling hills of south-central Romania,
very near Ramnicu Valcea. The lenght of
totality (the period of apparent night) will be
2m23s and the path
width of the eclipse (the umbra's strip on the Earth, where the
eclipse's visibility is total) will be 112km.
The umbra's velocity
will be 0.68km/s. Four minutes later, at 11:07 UT,
the capital of Romania, Bucharest, will
be engulfed by the shadow. Since Bucharest
will lie on the center line near the instant of greatest eclipse, it
will enjoy a 2m22s duration of total eclipse.
The 2.5 million people capital of Romania will enjoy, in
three astronomical observatories, both public assistance and
scientifical projects. Camps for amateur astronomers
and public in the gorgeous mountain regions as Retezat National Park
or Apuseni are planned and guided by astronomical clubs, Romanian
astronomers and touring companies...

T
raveling south-southeast, the path encompasses the
Romania-Bulgaria border before leaving land and heading out across
Black Sea. The next landfall occurs along
the Black Sea coast of northern Turkey at
11:21 UT. The umbra reaches Turkey's southeastern
border at 11:45 UT and briefly enters
north-western Syria as it crosses into
Iraq and Iran western boundary (11:52 UT). At 12:22 UT, the
shadow enters Pakistan and skirts the
shores of the Arabian Sea. The umbra
arrives in India, the last nation in
the path, at 12:28 UT. At 12:36:23 UT, the umbra races back into
space, not to return until the next millennium...

A
scientifical journal on the 1999 eclipse is
"Total Solar Eclipse of 1999 August 11" by Fred Espenak and
Jay Anderson (NASA Reference Publication 1398), where this note was
compiled. Additional exhaustive materials containing graphs, explanations
and tables of visibility, can be found at the folowing
NASA address.